Recently, a friend recommended I try the Bear River Pasta Company, it was a little hard to find, at 109 Bank Street. Inside it is compact and very clean. There is a refrigerator full of pre-made pasta dishes with the sauce, along with bread and yummy salads for eating in, or taking out for an easy dinner meal. They also make lots of different sandwiches on wheat or sourdough bread with all the fixings. Owners Carl Brenner and Theresa McGuire have done a nice job of creating a reasonably priced venue for quick meals and take-out dinners.
If you are eating in, you microwave the dish of pasta, and your choice of salad and freshly toasted bread is brought to you. We tried the Spaghetti and Meatballs, apparently the hands down favorite seller! It was delicious, and so were the Garlic and Pesto Breads! We also shared a Carmel Balsamic Gelato which was fantastic! Lots of other flavors of gelato were also available along with Cannoli and Tiramisu.
A second refrigerator was filled with many different kinds on homemade pasta as well as homemade sauces, enough to serve a family. There is also a supply of Italian specialty items, oils, candies, cookies, beautiful wooden wine stoppers, nic-naks and potholders. The salad items also include many varieties of olives, nicely displayed.
We took out some fresh made Fettuccini and the Tomato Basil Sauce, along with some nice homemade pot holders. All and all it was a great find, and I am sure we will come again! Check out the full menu at their website www.bearriverpasta.com. Bear River Pasta also attends local events and street fairs, and catering as requested.
Submit the winning theme and win a prize package to the 2014 Nevada County Fair
The Nevada County Fairgrounds is hosting a contest to find the winning theme for the 2014 Fair. Do you have a catchy or fun theme that you think would be perfect for the 2014 Nevada County Fair?
Visit the Fair’s website at NevadaCountyFair.com and submit a theme idea that you think would be perfect for the Fair. If the theme you submit is selected, you win. The winner will receive a 2014 Nevada County Fair package that includes two free admission tickets for each day of the Fair, a 5-day parking pass for the Fair, and ride coupons.
The contest is open to Nevada County residents only. Submissions must be five words or less and no trade-marked themes will be considered. The contest runs now through November 8, 2013. For those without access to the Internet, entry forms are available at the Nevada County Fairgrounds office, or information can be mailed to the Fairgrounds at P.O. Box 2687, Grass Valley, CA 95945. No phone entries will be accepted.
Once the winning theme is selected, there will be a contest to design artwork to illustrate the theme. Each year, the theme and artwork appear on advertisements, t-shirts, buttons, posters, banners and the Fair’s website to promote the Fair.
The 2014 Nevada County Fair is scheduled for August 6 – 10. For a complete list of contest rules or information, visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com or call (530) 273-6217.
Winner of the 10th annual Gingerbread House Competition at the Country Christmas Faire Best of Show winner Wanda Dunn of Penn Valley
Want to enter something in the Nevada County Fair? There’s still time! The deadline for submitting paper entry forms or to enter on-line using the Fair’s on-line entry system is July 19 at 4 pm. There are no entry fees for most categories, so simply visit the Fair Office on McCourtney Road or log-on to the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com to complete the entry process.
Join the thousands of Nevada County residents who enter exhibits each year in the more than 300 available categories. If you can make it, bake it, grow it or show it, we have a category for you! Don’t delay – enter now!
Complete descriptions of all categories are available in the Fair’s Competition Handbook, which is available on the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com or at the Fair office.
The 2013 Fair is August 7 – 11. For more information, call (530) 273-6217 or visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com.
Art work by Sandy Gold Winner 2011 Fair Art Work Contest
By Wendy Oaks
Want to enter something in the Nevada County Fair? The deadline has been extended, so there’s still time! The deadline for submitting paper entry forms or to enter on-line using the Fair’s on-line entry system is now July 22. There are no post entry fees, so simply visit the Fair Office on McCourtney Road or log-on to the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com to complete the entry process.
Join the thousands of Nevada County residents who enter exhibits each year in the more than 300 available categories. If you can make it, bake it, grow it or show it, we have a category for you! Don’t delay – enter now!
Complete descriptions of all categories are available in the Fair’s Competition Handbook, which is available on the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com, at the Fair office, area libraries, and local chamber of commerce offices.
The 2011 Fair is August 10 – 14. For more information, call (530) 273-6217 or visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com.
In north eastern Italy, on the flat landscape of the Venito region, with the spectacular Dolomite mountains in the distance, sits the city on Vicenza. It is home to one of the premier art showcases around the world, called Abilmente, with a spring showing on March 3-6, 2011, and a fall showing to be held October 20 to October 23, 2011 at the Fiera di Vicenza (Fair of Vicenza) located at Via dell Oreficeria 16, Vicenza, Venito, Italy.
A feature of Abilmente are the “Workshops”(or Ateliers), spaces where the practical aspects and exhibitions combine. The settings will highlight the work of leading artists in each sector, providing plenty of ideas to others. There are chances to participate in several courses held by the leading associations and artists in each sector. The planned workshops are: “A Voyage into the World of Color”, “Patchwork” “Natural Dye” “DIY Fashion: Bijoux and Accessories” and “Creating with Paper”:
This year in honor of the 150th Anniversary of the Union of Italy, there is a special Creative Workshop (called Patchwork Atelier). Here the Associazione Nazionale Quilt Italia, the star of this workshop, presents the Italian cultures, images and landscapes of the regions that have united to make Italy a truly great nation. The show will display, through original pieces of patchwork quilt, the distinctive features that characterize each individual region.
The website for Abilmente, http://www.abilmente.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=1764 contains information about how to come to the show including prices, maps and information about where to stay, for the October 20-23, 2011 fall showing.
So fashion your 2011 fall tour of Italy around a visit to the Venito region!!
Photos courtesy of Abilmente:
Written by Judy J. Pinegar
Writer, if you need something written for your blog, you can contact me for further information
Business owners can easily get stuck in a vicious cycle: Business isn’t so good. They can’t afford to outsource their marketing. They do it themselves, results remain poor, and business remains not-so-good.
How do business owners get out of this vicious cycle? It’s not easy, but it’s simple: they make a decision to get serious about their marketing before they lose their business altogether. If you’re a business owner finding yourself in this rut, here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Define your audience. If you try to market to everyone, you end up marketing to no one. Who’s your target market? Once you’ve figured this out, you may discover you don’t have to spend as much money on marketing as you have been.
2. Find a copywriter. Ask other local business people or do an online search. You can work with someone locally or long-distance, as you prefer. Fee structures vary. After you’ve interviewed a few, it’s best to choose one in the mid-range. Highly paid copywriters are the best, but a lot of their cost is simply their fame. Don’t choose the lowest bidder—you’ll get what you pay for.
3. Get a website! It’s mind-boggling that some business owners still don’t “get it” that a website is absolutely essential. Many potential customers want to “check you out” before they call you or come into your place of business. If they can’t, they may well go to your competitor instead. It’s really not a highly technical task anymore, but if you don’t have the skills or the time to do it yourself, outsource it.
4. Put an opt-in box on your website. Collect names and e-mail addresses. Keep a list. Then keep in touch with your list. It’s that simple.
5. Have a call to action. This can work in harmony with the opt-in, such as “download your free report,” or separately, such as “call for a free consultation.” But be sure to tell your website visitors what you want them to do.
6. Give them free information. It may seem counter-intuitive, but giving away information accomplishes two things: it establishes you as an expert, and it makes people feel indebted to you. Free information can take many forms. Ask your copywriter about it.
7. Take advantage of free publicity. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and several other social media tools are free. Learn how to use them.
8. Leverage testimonials. The first thing you need to know is that you (almost) never use a testimonial word-for-word. That would be akin to recording a real-life conversation and transcribing it as-is for dialog in a novel. (It really doesn’t sound very good.) If you do not haves testimonials (maybe you’re a new business), your copywriter can help you work around this.
9. Leverage customer complaints. Complaints are not all bad! Among other things, they tell you what you need to improve. While an unhappy customer spreads the “bad” word much farther and wider than a happy one spreads the “good” word, you can turn an unhappy customer into a happy one.
10. As a local business, you can create a “coupon swap” program with another local business and double your potential customer base.
11. Ask your copywriter what kinds of marketing collateral would benefit your business. White papers, news releases, fliers, brochures, postcards, and many others are all in the repertoire of any good copywriter.
These are all ideas I thought of in just a few minutes. If any of them sound mysterious to you, it’s probably because you don’t have the marketing expertise that a copywriter has. And that’s fine; you’re not expected to. That’s what copywriters are for.
Get serious about your marketing. Talk to your colleagues, log on to Google, do whatever you need to do to find a copywriter who will make your marketing work…before your business becomes another victim of the vicious cycle.
Lisa J. Lehr is a writer and copywriter living in Grass Valley. She can help you promote your business with a full range of online and offline marketing pieces. A member of Empire Toastmasters, she’s available to speak to your business or professional group. Visit her website www.justrightcopy.com for more information, opt in for the message series, and receive a free Marketing Guide.
—
Lisa J. Lehr
I write words that make you money–just ask me how. www.justrightcopy.com
Visit my website and sign up for my fr~ee marketing tips.
New! No~cost Marketing Guide now available at my website.
China’s property prices are falling, with potentially far-reaching effects world-wide. And should investors think twice for buying into Chinese firms? Hong Kong’s outgoing securities regulator thinks so. WSJ’s Peter Stein and Andrew LaVallee discuss.
BEIJING — New-home prices plummeted by more than 20 percent year-on-year in the Chinese capital in May, and analysts said other cities will follow the trend in the second half of this year.
In Beijing, the average price of a newly constructed unit dropped to 23,467 yuan (US$3,400) a square meter, a month-on-month decrease of 7.19 percent, and 21.06 percent lower than the same period last year, according to SouFun.com, the largest property website in China.
Prices fell partly because more developers offered discounts to counter the cooling effect of the government’s tightening property policies.
For all your real estate needs, call or email:
John J. O’Dell Realtor®
Real estate broker
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091 jodell@nevadacounty.com
In an earlier post, I talked about the importance of auto responders: those little automated messages that your website visitors get when they opt in to (i.e., put their name and e-mail address in the boxes) your website. In doing some outreach to local businesses recently, however, I discovered that not only does the average local business not have an auto responder series…they don’t even have a website!
Grass Valley-area businesses, the 21st century is calling: you need a website.
These days, getting a website up and running is not a major project that you need to budget thousands of dollars for. You have many options with a range of prices and skill requirements. Check out XSitePro, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, and Godaddy’s Website Tonight. You can even set up your website as a blog using WordPress and choosing from their many free themes; you also have the choice of installing the blog directly on the domain name and forgoing the “Wordpress” extension. If you can’t (or don’t have time to) do this yourself, hire a teenager or someone from Elance.com.
Once you decide which way to go, the important thing is not flashy graphics or the latest technological bells and whistles, but good content. You’ll need plenty of informative material that establishes you as an expert in your niche. Besides making you look like a genius, free content has the desirable effect of making people feel indebted to you. End result: when they need your product or service, they come to you, not your competition.
Articles, down loadable free reports…free content takes many forms. And don’t forget the opt-in—that’s how you stay in touch with your prospective customers and maintain that top-of-mind awareness. [link back to article on ARs]
Now, how many Grass Valley-area business owners reading this will decide that this is the final piece of convincing evidence they needed to put up a website? And how many of them are your competition?
Lisa J. Lehr is a writer and copywriter living in Grass Valley. She can help you promote your business with a full range of online and offline marketing pieces. A member of Empire Toastmasters, she’s available to speak to your business or professional group. Visit her website www.justrightcopy.com for more information, opt in for the message series, and receive a free Marketing Guide.
—
Lisa J. Lehr
I write words that make you money–just ask me how. www.justrightcopy.com
Visit my website and sign up for my fr~ee marketing tips.
New! No~cost Marketing Guide now available at my website.
Yes, we know. The economy is bad. Recovery may be on the horizon, but no one really knows how close. Or if we can “hold out” till it happens. Yet we can each take some actions to position ourselves in the best possible way to survive a weak economy—and be at the front of the pack when it improves.
Dr. Ivan Misner, founder and chairman of BNI (Business Networking International), the world’s largest business networking organization,says that during an economic downturn “you can actually prosper…while everyone else flounders in fear.” He tells of being at a business mixer in the early 1990s, “right in the middle of a nasty recession.”
As he looked around the room and listened in, he noticed that “while nearly all were commiserating with one another, very few were actually networking and working on seeking new business…,” which, of course, was the purpose of the mixer!
So, while we can’t control the economy, we can control our response to it. Dr. Misner goes on to say, “During the last recession, I watched thousands of businesspeople grow and prosper…because they
consciously made the decision to refuse to participate in a recession. They did so by developing their networking skills and learning how to build their business through word of mouth.”
I’ve heard several people in my contact sphere say they’re refusing to participate in the recession. What if everyone refused to participate? We wouldn’t have a recession!
Dr. Misner concludes, “Don’t let a bad economy be your excuse for failure. Instead, make it your opportunity to succeed. While others are looking at the problems, those of us looking for opportunities
will not only get through a bad economy but will prosper.”
Here are some ideas on ways to find opportunity:
Invite people to meetings of your business or trade group.
Offer to speak at an industry conference.
Send out a mailing.
Begin an e-mail campaign.
Write letters to the editor.
Start a blog.
Submit articles to trade publications and online article sites.
Add an opt-in and an auto-responder series to your website.
If you don’t have a website, get one.
If you need to outsource any of these projects, do it.
Stay in front of potential customers. Whatever line of work you’re in, people still need your product or service. If you’ve made your name familiar to your target audience and established yourself as an expert in your niche, you’ll be the one they go to when they’re ready to buy—instead of your competitors. Your (former) competitors will be the ones commiserating about how the recession of the early 21st century ruined them.
Lisa J. Lehr is a writer and copywriter living in Grass Valley. She
can help you promote your business with a full range of online and
offline marketing pieces. A member of Empire Toastmasters, she’s
available to speak to your business or professional group. Visit her
website www.justrightcopy.com for more information, opt in for the
message series, and receive a free Marketing Guide.
—
Lisa J. Lehr
I write words that make you money–just ask me how. www.justrightcopy.com
Visit my website and sign up for my fr~ee marketing tips.
New! No~cost Marketing Guide now available at my website.
